The Coronavirus Game Plan: How We Got Here And Where It Ends

You can endlessly debate the wisdom and timing of the administration’s actions in responding to the COVID-19, or coronavirus, outbreak. But one thing seems beyond dispute: The federal government is making an all-out effort to help.

Further, the innumerable press briefings and public statements leave no question as to the administration’s overall game plan and what the White House sees as the likely endgame.

Doctors test hospital staff with flu-like symptoms for the coronavirus in set-up tents to triage possible COVID-19 patients outside before they enter the main emergency department area at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York, March 24, 2020. (Photo: Misha Friedman/ Stringer/Getty Images)

To make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s review the game plan.

The first step was to slow the arrival of COVID-19 to our shores. The president did that by restricting travel from overseas—starting with China, then extending that to other nations as the disease spread.

In retrospect, the wisdom of that move is obvious. Places that restricted travel from China early on—Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea—have the best record of slowing the rate of infection. Countries such as Italy and Iran that were late in turning off the tap from China suffered a viral tsunami and spread the problem to their neighbors.

Next, Washington started sending support to state and local governments and easing restrictions on both public and private sector operations so that they can contribute more—and more quickly—to the response effort.

We are seeing that pay off already, as Medicare patients can now take advantage of telemedicine, more manufacturers are allowed to produce protective gear, and clinical trials of promising treatments are getting fast-tracked. These actions are geared to slowing the spread of COVID-19, protecting vulnerable populations, and assuring treatment is available to patients.

Right now, from a public health perspective, the No. 1 goal is to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. The most effective preventative tool for this is social distancing, which is why officials at all levels of government are so insistent on the practice. But Washington is also striving to make sure state and local governments have the assets necessary to provide the level of care needed.

Most recently, the administration has turned to address the non-health-related consequences of both the disease and the response. It is focusing now on delivering aid to the individuals and small businesses that will bear the brunt of the economic and social costs of social distancing. A bill meant to accomplish that is expected to pass this week.

The single most crucial step right now is to bend the curve as fast and expeditiously as possible. Limiting the spread of the disease will make dealing with outbreaks more manageable and buy time to deliver the prophylactics, testing, and therapeutics that will enable the health system to deal with a persistent presence of COVID-19. Yes, we hope COVID-19 will, like the flu, wane with warmer weather, but, right now we just don’t know.

Keeping the disease at manageable levels will allow Americans to get back to business. In the meanwhile, the U.S. will have to continue to manage international travel so we don’t reimport the virus. After all, you can’t drain the bathtub if you have the faucet running full tilt.

Of course, everyone anticipates the development of a vaccine to help manage COVID-19, but no one knows how far off that may be. And we can’t wait indefinitely for a cure-all.

We can, however, keep taking intelligent steps to get COVID-19 under control. And once we do that, we will need to get the economy up and running as soon as possible.

And that will be just as great a challenge as the public health challenge. In economics as in health, the governing principle should be “First, do no harm.” That said, how Washington decides to help matters a very great deal.

My colleagues at The Heritage Foundation have great reservations about the recovery bill lawmakers worked on over the weekend and they have outlined what seems to be a much better approach.

Let’s hope Washington acts wisely on this. It’s a big decision: one that will determine whether this nation emerges from the COVID-19 crisis more—or much less—free, prosperous, and safe than when the crisis began.

James Jay Carafano, Ph.D. contributes posts at The Daily Signal. He is a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, E. W. Richardson fellow, and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation . http://www.heritage.org/

An exponential function starts out small and increases quickly.
Begin the month with a penny, double it every day and by the end of the month you have a bazillion dollars.
WHO considers COVID-19 an exponential virus with cases and deaths doubling every ten days or five days or two and turning out badly.

A logarithmic function starts out quickly then slows and levels out.
COVID-19 is obviously a logarithmic virus.
After culling the herd of the too old, too sick, too vulnerable, COVID-19 withers and dies out in the 98% of cases healthy, robust and resistant enough to fight it off, e.g. Tom Hanks.

And COVID-19 would have, will and is following the logarithmic model in spite of the shrill carping of the lying, fact free, fake news media and the gross over reaction of grand standing politicians.

This affair will generate decades of book deals, speaking tours and debate.
Maybe all of that should be taxed to compensate those most harmed.

Hi nickreality65,
Good idea to tax those who contributed to harming people with their lies and inaction.
In Australia, even though their politicians fight tooth and nail, like ours do, they passed 3 Corona virus relief bills UNANIMOUSLY! With NO pork as the demoncrats here are doing.

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